Greenberg Associates May Plead Guilty in Fraud Case, Attorneys Say

Two associates of former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg plan to plead guilty to charges of taking part in a multimillion-dollar real estate fraud scheme, lawyers told a federal judge on Monday.

“We are in plea negotiations,” Amanda Daniels, a prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said to U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell at the morning status hearing.

In all, Keith Ingersoll and James Adamcyzk face 40 charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud and engaging in fraudulent money transactions as prosecutors say the pair devised and coordinated a scheme to bilk a local investor out of at least $12 million.

Ingersoll’s attorney, Damon Chase, however, added that his client will fight the single additional charge of identity theft and is prepared to go to a jury trial.

“We believe that we can disprove that,” Chase said.

Adamcyzk has advanced cancer that has spread into his lungs and is mostly bed-ridden as he undergoes chemotherapy treatment, his attorney Brian Phillips told the judge.

“His health continues to deteriorate,” Phillips said.

Still, Presnell said he would likely schedule any trial for mid-November, as he urged attorneys to move the case forward without any more delays.

“This case is aging,” Presnell said. “And we need to get it on schedule to get it resolved.”

According to a grand jury indictment from November 2021, both men worked with other unnamed co-conspirators in convincing the investor — known only as J.W. in court documents — that they needed money to pay deposits on real estate contracts they signed to purchase properties in Florida, Alabama, Nebraska, Illinois and in the Bahamas.

The pair falsely told te investor that they would then flip the properties for a profit and the investor would earn a 9% return, according to the indictment.

One of the unnamed co-conspirators is a former attorney whose license to practice law was suspended in 2008, according to court records. After that former attorney died, Adamcyzk falsely told the investor that he was an attorney and would hold the “refundable deposits in escrow,” according to the indictment.

“When in truth and in fact, James P. Adamcyzk was not a licensed attorney and he did not hold the victim’s funds in escrow or as an escrow agent but diverted portions for his personal benefit and transferred other funds to Keith Ingersoll,” states the indictment.

Prosecutors also accuse the pair of fabricating the names of people willing to sell their properties and producing fake real estate documents with forged signatures.

In turn, Ingersoll and Adamcyzk spent the victim’s deposits on luxury rental cars, travel and adult entertainment for themselves, according to the indictment.

At Monday’s court hearing, Daniels of the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the amount of evidence in the case — including information on email accounts and bank transactions — “is voluminous” as she asked for a November trial date instead of the currently scheduled Sept. 6 date.

Presnell also took into account Adamcyzk’s failing health, and that he may not have long to live.

“Obviously, we wish him the best,” Presnell said. “But it doesn’t sound like a good prognosis.”

Ingersoll befriended Greenberg before he was elected Seminole County Tax Collector in 2016. Greenberg later hired Ingersoll as the public office’s real estate advisor.

Ingersoll and Adamcyzk became involved in a property-flipping deal that auditors for Seminole County called “possible fraudulent activity.”

In that transaction, Adamczyk’s newly formed company, Shooters Inc., purchased a former bank building on State Road 434 in Winter Springs for $680,000, then sold it hours later to the Tax Collector’s Office under Greenberg for $810,000 in cash. Ingersoll helped coordinate the deal between Greenberg and Adamcyzk’s company, according to public documents. Shooters was dissolved weeks after the transaction.

Greenberg told a Sentinel reporter at the time that he hired Ingersoll to look for properties near Oviedo and Winter Springs to open a new branch office.

A county auditor wrote that “the acquisition of this property has collusion written all over it.”

An ABC News report last year said that federal investigators “reached out to Ingersoll as they looked into contracts that Greenberg handed out during his time in office.”

Greenberg pleaded guilty in May 2021 to committing six felonies while serving as tax collector, including sex trafficking of a child, identity theft, stalking, wire fraud and conspiracy to bribe a public official. He is scheduled to be sentenced by Presnell on Dec. 1 and is currently incarcerated at the Orange County Jail.

Portions of this story retrieved from the Orlando Sentinel.